Lincoln leaned over to ask Betsy just where the hell she could be, but right then the first strains of Pachelbel’s Canon—predictable but still so right for the occasion—began, and there was no chance to say anything. The bridesmaids were taking their turns walking down the aisle, and then the twins. When they had all reached the chuppah, Ohad’s mother—deeply tanned and even more deeply wrinkled—moved to join them with her brother by her side. She seemed so solemn with her small white bouquet; she did not look right or left but kept her gaze straight ahead as she walked. As soon she got there and turned around, Betsy and Don began their walk; they were followed by the flower girl, who was all by herself.
The child—the granddaughter of one of Betsy’s first cousins—took her job very seriously and was intent on covering every inch of the white path with her petals. No one else seemed to mind, though Lincoln wished she would hurry up. About three-quarters of the way down, she realized her basket was empty. She froze, eyes darting anxiously around. Betsy smiled, gesturing for her to keep on walking. Still she did not move. The musicians grew silent; the girl looked ready to cry. But then Ohad appeared, his shining black shoes covering the petal-strewn path in just a few long strides. He reached the panicked flower girl and, taking her hand in his, walked toward the chuppah.
Good, at least that was over. The musicians began to play again, and then finally, finally there was Angelica arriving in a golf cart! A flower-decked golf cart, no less! Now, who would have thought of that? But Lincoln had to concede that it was actually a very clever idea: it protected her long white dress from grass stains and allowed her to make quite an entrance.
As she stepped out and came toward him, he wanted to ask her where the hell she had been, but was stopped—stunned really—by her appearance. What was she wearing over her face? Jesus, it was her veil. Her entire head was obscured by the elaborate cloud of white netting, rendering her mysterious, even alien. Hardly the baby with whom he’d been instantly smitten or the girl who’d continued to enchant him. No, the veil created a vexing distance between her and everyone else; she was like an apparition, hovering just slightly apart and out of reach.
The golf cart pulled away, and for a few seconds Lincoln felt intoxicated—though he’d had nothing alcoholic to drink—by his daughter’s unfamiliar aspect. Angelica. His angel. Then he got hold of himself. Goddamn, but he had a job to do, and he was going to do it. “Ready?” he whispered, and when the white nimbus that was her head inclined slightly, he took her hand, and they began to walk.
Lincoln felt the stares of the assembled guests like so many glowing stars, so many bursts of heat. Not for him, of course—this was not about him. He was the conduit, no more. As they walked, he saw people from his old life with Betsy—the odious Kleiers (God, but the wife was a bitch!), the Sugarmans, the Driscolls. Phil Driscoll gave him a pleasant nod, as did Ned Sugarman. Ned Sugarman was not a bad guy. And Phil—he’d always liked Phil. He’d make a point of talking to him later. Then Lincoln spied Ennis sitting there with his head down. He did not look happy.
Lincoln’s ruined tooth began to throb again even through the cocooning haze of Betsy’s painkiller. Yet it was a subtle and almost welcome feeling, one that kept him tethered to this earth, this life. Slowly and proudly he led his daughter toward the flower-covered chuppah that awaited her, and when they arrived, he stepped gallantly aside.
Betsy briefly pressed both her palms together when Angelica reached the chuppah. Although she looked as though she was praying, she was in fact merely dispelling the tension she had felt during the flower girl’s mini-meltdown. But all was well now. Lincoln had conducted himself with dignity and poise, and Angelica—enveloped by the white veil—had seemed to float rather than walk down the aisle.
The veil was a surprise, at once radical and retrograde. Angelica had mentioned that she planned to wear it in her hair, not that she was going to cover her entire face and head with it. Well, that was certainly in keeping with her daughter’s character. She had rarely turned to Betsy for advice, and even more rare were the times Angelica confided in her. That had never been her way, and yet Betsy mourned it afresh, as if it were a newly realized insight. Would married life change Angelica at all? Betsy doubted it. But maybe, just maybe, if and when Angelica had a baby, she would need Betsy in a way she had not needed her before. You needed your mother when you had a baby, Betsy thought, remembering her own early days of motherhood. And you appreciated her too.
The music had stopped, and the rabbi stood looking out at the expectant crowd. Betsy watched as he brought his hands together—this time the gesture really did suggest prayer—and began to speak. “What a joyful day,” he began, “a happy day in the lives of this couple and all those who love them….” She stopped listening. She was instead overcome by just how much she wanted her previously unarticulated wish to come true, the desire seizing her in a way that felt urgent, even physical. The tears—for the third time today—that rose in her eyes were the manifest proof of her desire, her hope that one day her beautiful, distant daughter would come back to her, would come home at last.
The rabbi—Where had he come from? Gretchen had missed his entrance somehow—stepped forward. He was dark skinned, dark eyed, and possessed of a serious unibrow; he looked like another member of Ohad’s large family—clustered on one side of the aisle and many wearing yarmulkes on their blue-black hair—though Gretchen doubted this was the case.
It felt odd to be sitting here watching when her daughters, brothers, and parents were all up there by the chuppah. But Gretchen had declined her sister’s offer to be her matron of honor; given the wreckage of her own marriage, she had been in no state to be a member of a wedding party when the invitation had been issued. Angelica said she understood, and asked one of her med-school friends, a haughty auburn-haired woman named Drew, instead. Gretchen had disliked her instantly and was sure the feeling was mutual. There was Drew now, elegant in her pearl-gray dress, carefully cradling Angelica’s bouquet. Looking at her Gretchen felt shamed. She, not Drew, should have been up there today; maybe she had been self-centered and churlish in her refusal.
“Beloved family and friends, tonight we are here to celebrate the union of two very special people, Angelica Silverstein and Ohad Oz.” He paused briefly to smile at the couple, but Ohad and Angelica were looking only at each other. “Marriage is a holy state,” he began again. “A joyful, much wished-for, fervently sought-after, and deeply desired state. And it brings us all”—he spread his hands out to the expectant group of guests—“great happiness to watch Ohad and Angelica enter into it.” He talked for a few minutes about marriage, what it was and wasn’t, how it could grow stronger or weaker depending on the commitment of those involved.
Gretchen, aware of Ennis in the row behind her, could not help but feel that these remarks were addressed to her in particular. How committed had she been to her own marriage? Had she taken Ennis for granted, left herself slip away from him, if not physically, then emotionally? She shifted uncomfortably in her seat as if her thoughts had been made tangible, like something sharp poking her from behind. Ever since that awful day when Eve had shown up at their house, Gretchen had nurtured, even cherished the role of victim, the one who had been wounded, wronged, and betrayed. But what if she had ignored her own role in the sequence of events? What if she had pushed Ennis out and right into the arms of someone else, someone who would give him the warmth and tenderness that she lacked? Their conversation earlier today had raised some doubts; this ceremony was raising yet more.
She did not like thinking this way and tried instead to focus on her sister, wrapped in white and standing straight and slim as one of the lilies in the numerous floral arrangements. But even this image would not stay fixed in her mind. She saw instead Angelica as a baby, waving her little fists in the air when Gretchen came into the room, reaching eagerly with both arms for Gretchen to pick her up. It was a sweet memory; she had loved her baby sister, doll-like and dimple kneed, and had loved th
e way her infant helplessness had recast her own position in the family. Unlike Teddy and Caleb, who were both closer to her in age, Angelica was almost ten years younger, and her birth had allowed Gretchen to assume a new, quasi-adult status among the Silversteins. How important that had made her feel. How proud.
The rabbi was quiet now and looked expectantly at Angelica and Ohad. Gretchen looked at them too. What would their married life be like? Filled with delight or disappointment or more likely an ever-changing mixture of both? Again she felt the presence of Ennis behind her. Was he aware of her? Thinking of her? She was tempted to turn around, but, no, she would not give him the satisfaction.
Justine stood very still in her place amid the wedding party. Her calf itched, but she did not move to scratch it; she was almost afraid to move, afraid to jar the fragile equilibrium that allowed her to be here at all, so close to Ohad that she could once again smell him. Nestled in the bodice of her dress, just above the bra that Grandma L. had approved, was a small cloth bag—Grandma L. had provided that too—containing Angelica’s diamond ring, the ring that Justine now needed to give back as badly as she had earlier needed to steal it.
She was grateful her sister was beside her now, and even more grateful that she did not have to say anything to her. Portia had cornered her before the wedding demanding to know where she had been, but Justine had been able to put her off—at least temporarily. She looked around. There were a lot of people here she didn’t know—friends of Angelica’s, she supposed. The bridesmaids were strangers to her. The matron of honor too; Justine thought she looked bratty. What had her mother been saying before about Angelica and her former best friend? She hadn’t supplied too many details, but it sounded as though Angelica had betrayed her somehow. Justine was still struggling to realign her previous perception of her aunt with this new information.
And what about Ohad? Was he really a murderer? It was hard to believe, seeing how sweet he’d been with that little flower girl. Grandma L. had said she didn’t know what he had done as a soldier and a pilot; she had not been there. And she had to admit that Grandma L. just might have had a point when she said Ohad was complex. Then again, wasn’t everyone complex if you got right down to it? Even the most boring, vapid person on the face of the earth? Too bad. It was so much easier to think someone you didn’t like was a dickwad; it was much harder to acknowledge that they too had some kind of inner life, one you would never have a clue about.
As Justine watched, Ohad leaned over to lift Angelica’s veil from her face in a gesture so intimate and tender that Justine almost could not bear to witness it. She was hideously aware of the engagement ring pressing against her chest. God, she wished she could get rid of it now. She tried to banish the panic that was hovering over her like a pair of black wings spread and beating near—much too near—her face.
She was saved by Ohad, who had started to speak in Hebrew, the unfamiliar, jagged cadences yanking her out of whatever it was that had threatened to engulf her. She listened, rapt, and then he translated. Thy lips, O my bride, drop honey—honey and milk are under thy tongue; and the smell of thy garments is like the smell of Lebanon. That was from the Song of Songs; Justine had read the whole thing in her English lit class in a recent segment on love poetry. And she had liked it too, even if she thought it was a bit over-the-top. But, then, it was okay if love poetry was over-the-top: passionate, extravagant, and emotional. She had said as much in the class discussion, and her teacher, Ms. Drezner, had started nodding excitedly, yes, yes, the way she did when some student—often Justine—made exactly the point she was hoping to get across.
Then it was Angelica’s turn, and she too began reciting in Hebrew. How had she found the time to learn those words and to practice them until they sounded so familiar, so effortless? Angelica was and would always be amazing. She spoke again, this time in English. I am a rose of Sharon, a lily of the valleys. There was a little more talk from the rabbi and then the actual vows, do you take, do you take, hands extended, gold bands offered, exchanged and slipped on.
Then the rabbi raised his arm to show everyone the wineglass covered by a white napkin. Except that Portia had told her it was really a lightbulb, because it made a more satisfying sound. When he seemed satisfied that everyone had seen it, he placed it down on the grass and together, as if synchronized, Angelica and Ohad each lifted up a foot—his in black leather, hers in ivory silk—and crunched down on it hard. There was a muffled shatter and then a long kiss.
Justine was mesmerized as the bride and groom clung to each other, faces and bodies pressed in a seamless embrace. How perfectly they seemed to fit together; yet Justine had the sense that they could just as easily have let go—their being together was a choice, not an obligation or a need. When the kiss finally ended, the guests erupted into cheers.
Around her, people were crying: Ohad’s mother, Grandma Betsy, Don, and Justine’s grandpa. Grandma Lenore was mopping her face with a handkerchief; she blew her nose loudly, and everyone started to laugh. Justine did not cry but experienced a sort of tremulous relief that Grandma L. had talked her into coming. Oh, Justine saw through her: pretending not to care was a much craftier—and effective—ploy than outright pressure. And it had worked; she was here, just where her great-grandmother had wanted her to be all along.
But Justine forgave the manipulation, because everything she had imagined about this day had been revised and rewritten as she had lived it. The wedding wasn’t tasteless, vulgar, or corny. It was gorgeous, it was sacred, and she felt grateful to have been a part of it. But even more than that, she was overcome with remorse—those horrible black wings again, beating furiously—to think that she had almost ruined the day and prevented the wedding from happening. This was the feeling she often had when she had stolen something, only this was worse, much worse. She pressed her face into her hands, and it was then that the tears—galling and hot—came. Portia turned to look at her. “Are you all right, Teeny?” she whispered.
“No,” Justine said, unable to lift her face from the protection of her own palms, “I’m not.”
Lenore, still standing near the chuppah, beamed as the bride and groom, smiling, laughing, and reaching out to touch the hands of their guests, walked back up the aisle. They came slowly as Angelica paused to look around at all the people who had assembled. Lenore saw her nod and smile, smile and nod. Every now and then she blew a small kiss to someone as she sailed serenely by.
A small sniff from somewhere nearby diverted Lenore’s attention. She turned. Justine crying—again? Upstairs in Lenore’s room, the girl had seemed all right, agreeing to attend the wedding without any real pressure; the hysterics and drama had mercifully passed. And she’d seemed fine in the rose garden too; Lenore had been watching. What could have set her off again?
But as Lenore continued to observe, Justine rallied, drying her eyes with her fingers—at least it wasn’t the hem of her dress!—and scurrying around the back of the chuppah, along the outside of the tent, and up to the head of the aisle. She met Angelica midway down. Many people had already gotten up and, chattering and happy, were milling around near their seats. People were talking, smiling, laughing. No one except Lenore paid attention when Justine reached inside her dress and then pressed something into Angelica’s palm. The ring. Although Lenore could not actually see it changing hands, she felt a palpable sense of relief that it had now been restored to its rightful owner. And because Angelica’s back was to her, she could only imagine the fleeting trajectory of emotions crossing her lovely face: surprise, confusion, joy, all giving way to something sterner, something that seemed to expect—no, demand—an explanation. For several seconds Justine simply stared at her aunt before she stepped aside and let her resume her progress.
Lenore now saw that the little flower girl—Zoe was her name, and Lenore was delighted she had recalled it—was walking alongside the bridal couple. She skipped and pranced as she went, waving her empty basket gaily with one hand. With the other she held tightl
y to Ohad’s broad palm.
Twenty-four
On her way to the outlandish, fairy-tale tent where dinner was to be served, Gretchen ran smack into Ennis and Portia. Portia, who had been holding her father’s arm, disengaged herself to lean her cropped head on Gretchen’s shoulder; for a few blessed seconds Gretchen savored the weight and feel of her until Portia righted herself and trotted off. Gretchen was then left standing with Ennis on the wide swath of carpet that had been laid between the two tents to keep the guests’ heels from sinking into the wet grass.
“That was a lovely ceremony,” she said, just to say something that did not have anything to do with them, their present impasse, or just what they planned to do about it.
“Lovely, hey,” Ennis agreed. He began pulling on his tie, a gesture at once so obvious and revealing that Gretchen wanted to laugh. She actually felt pretty good—no, make that very good. Better than she had felt since before she’d arrived here. Throughout the ceremony, she had sat, surrounded by her family, listening to that gorgeous poetry—it had been quite something to hear it in Hebrew, even if she couldn’t understand it—while inside she was poised for takeoff.
Flashing a quick, impersonal smile at Ennis, Gretchen continued walking until she reached the tent where the tables with their white cloths and large centerpieces of white flowers had been set up. The sky had darkened and was now a deep, lapis-like blue.
But all the clouds were gone, and Gretchen could see the first stars begin to shine, weakly at first, in the lovely early June evening.
“What’s your rush?” Ennis said as he hurried to catch up and fall into step beside her.
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